It is necessary to first establish what a curriculum is in order to properly understand what curriculum design entails. According to Babu et al. (2013), a curriculum is the academic system that provides students with knowledge and skills. In simple terms, curriculum simply means subjects students choose in pursuit of desired careers. Babu goes on to say that the major objective of curriculum development is for students to use all of their newly acquired information and abilities to become effective citizens and contribute to the advancement of society. And for a curriculum to be beneficial to the students, it must be properly planned and appropriately organized. Thus, the purposeful, deliberate, and systematic organization of curriculum inside a class or course would then define what is curriculum design. In other words, it is a method of lesson planning. Identification of what will be done, who will do it, and what is crucial when the process of designing curriculum is underway (Babu et al., 2013). There are three forms of curriculum design used as models: problem-centered, student-centered, and subject-centered design. This article’s purpose is to highlight the student-centered design model in order to explore its characteristics and identify the fitting curricular system that allows student-centered design model effectiveness within the curriculum operations.
The three curriculum design models indicate how the curriculum system is centered on three fronts: Firstly, it shows a subject or field’s importance, with its content or learning materials either directly or indirectly encouraging students to value and pursue careers in that field. Secondly it reveals if the curriculum is encouraging problem solving scenarios (problem centered design), where pupils are directly exposed to life puzzles and situations that test their capacity for thought and problem-solving abilities. And thirdly it shows whether the curriculum is created to give students the freedom to direct their own academic careers and centered on what matters to them (student-centered design). The revelation of these three curriculum design models prompts one to wonder: Which of the three curriculum design models is CAPS Curriculum most heavily reliant upon?. Regardless of the model, the most important concern is whether the results of the teaching and learning process are consistent with the features of that model. These models operate well when the curriculum process is employed because Stutt, (2023) believes that the curriculum process best incorporates the six components of effective teaching.These components, in accordance with Stutt, are intended to demonstrate content knowledge, student knowledge, appropriate instructional strategy goals, resource knowledge, design cogent instruction, and student learning assessment. It is crucial to outline the qualities of student-centered design and how they connect to the CAPS Curriculum or PECS Curriculum since it has been declared that this publication’s primary focus is student-centered design model.
In revealing what it is and what it entails, Schweitzer, (2019) states that student-centered curriculum design takes students’ individual educational needs, interests, and aspirations
into consideration. In other words, it recognizes that every student is unique and adapts to their needs. The goal of student-centered curriculum design is to give students control over their education and provide them the freedom to make decisions about it. A student-centered curriculum has varied lesson plans that allow students to select their own tasks, lessons, and activities. Students may be inspired and encouraged to remain interested in the lessons they are learning as a result. Even though this model of curriculum creation is effective, it has the problem of being labor-intensive. Creating differentiated instruction puts pressure on the educator to design lessons and/or discover resources that are suitable for each student’s learning style. However, what stands out vividly here is the fact that the student centered curriculum design model is industrious and effective for students as they usurp leadership in their future oriented education.
It is evident from Schweitzer’s aforementioned claims that a personalized education curriculum system (PECS) is the intended setting for student-centered design. On the one hand, this is due to the fact that PECS is designed as a curriculum system that is solely based on high-quality curriculum theory elements, the principles of competency-oriented education, and is dedicated to practicalized assessment methodology to provide students with relevant skills, aptitudes, and values to successfully navigate contemporary society. PECS is created to be at the forefront of concerns over curriculum relevance. Just like the birth of postmodernism theory, PECS is the product of dissatisfaction with the modernist curriculum system in South Africa. PECS is meant to rescue students from the monstrous curriculum that fails to implement progressivism and provide differentiated learning that suits all students. Just like progressivism in the past, PECS is a disruptive and qualitative curriculum system that aims to end the confusion around the inconsistencies of the curriculum. PECS is meant to rescue students from the monstrous curriculum that fails to implement progressivism and provide differentiated learning that suits all students. Just like progressivism in the past, PECS is a disruptive and qualitative curriculum system that aims to end the confusion around the inconsistencies of the curriculum. PECS seeks to restore the value and dignity of our education system by making it responsive to the needs of society through the liberal education-based curriculum system. PECS aims to give students the opportunity to gain an insight into the world of work during their school years. And on the other hand CAPS is nowhere near to these characteristics.
The necessity for a customized education curriculum system (PECS) in South Africa is demonstrated by the similarities between PECS as a curriculum system and student-centered design as a curriculum design paradigm. It demonstrates how the PECS design is focused on the academic demands of each individual student with the goal of ensuring relevance between educational institutions and the workplaces.This further demonstrates that student-centered design, as a component of curriculum design, works best in a system of education that is already customized; a mass-produced system of education, such as CAPS curriculum, will never properly reap the rewards of
student-centered design. The interests and careers of pupils come after educators and subjects in a mass affair educational system like CAPS. This is clear when the DBE mandates a specific set of subjects from which students must select their curriculum, and these subjects are primarily theoretical in nature. Even subjects that are more practically oriented, like EGD,CAT, etc are theoretically taught. Even the assessment thereof is theoretical because it takes the form of written examinations and tests. The majority of subjects like EGD and the likes would be completed at the workshop as field work if the CAPS curriculum system was personalized and centered on the needs of the students. Assessment would be based on the development of the students rather than having them take exams and tests.
It is exactly for such reasons that the Simnandi solutions (Pty) Ltd independent education group is advocating for a curriculum system that is tailored to meet the educational needs of an individual student. A qualitative education curriculum system driven by a proper curriculum theory, practicalized assessment methodology, and focused on competency and liberal basis etc. Such a curriculum is none other than the proposed CAPS alternative, the personalized education curriculum system (PECS). As it might have been implied above, PECS is interested in making education relevant. To do this, it consults the market to understand the demands of the workplace, then returns to design the curriculum based on the outcome of the consultation with the market. PECS wants to bring education back into its right state.The triumph of PECS would restore the dignity of South Africa’s educational system; up until that point, education in the country has remained a perplexing phenomenon.
Know more about PECS: https:/simnandisolutions.co.za/personalized-education/
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Questionnaires.
Cite this publication: XABA, S.S. (2023).A look at the curriculum design: The student
-centred design as a focus model.https://simnandisolutions.co.za/post/.
Bibliography:
Stutt. A. 2023. Curriculum development and the 3 models.
https://tophat.com/blog/curriculum-development-models-design/#:~:text=There%20are %20three%20models%20of,%2C%20and%20problem%2Dcentered%20design. Date of Access: 29 June 2023.
Schweitzer, K. 2019. Curriculum design: Definition, purpose, and types.
https://www.thoughtco.com/curriculum-design-definition-4154176#:~:text=There%20are %20three%20basic%20types,Problem%2Dcentered%20design. Date of Access: 27 June 2023.
Babu, H., Gupta, A., Balachandran, M., Charma,A., Mani, A., Chabra, S., Jathol,C., & Chauhan,S.S. 2013. Curriculum design process. New Delhi: Vikas.